When was the last time you bought a single use water bottle? Ok, how long before that! For many of you, carrying a water bottle has become routine. And how many reusable bags do you own, and actually use? I'm guessing at least two. And your lunch, what's it get carried in? For an increasing number, it's something that isn't going in the trash when you're done. Yes, for an increasingly wide spectrum of the population, making sustainable choices in your life is an everyday occurrence, no longer confined to hippies and environmentalists. And yet there's a problem here. Reusables are not indestructible. What happens to that water bottle when it gets irreparably damaged? And that lunch container that now has a crack in it? That shopping bag looked great when you bought it...until the strap broke. For most reusable things out there, unless they're made of glass or aluminum, or one type of material that your local recycling services happens to process, there's nowhere for them to go but the dump or your attic, unless you happen to have a welding torch or be handy at sewing. It doesn't have to be that way.

After reading an advertisement on the wrapper, she learned about a company called TerraCycle, which pays groups to collect foil- and plastic-lined bags, as well as other types of trash, and then turns them into other products.

Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) could play a big role in helping Earth-friendly start-ups survive. The Wall Street Journal reported that Terracycle, a small, private company that fashions products out of difficult-to-recycle packaging, is hoping that large retailers like Wal-Mart will take up its cause more consistently -- and help the tiny company finally turn a profit. Wal-Mart carried Terracycle's wares during a promotion for last month's Earth Day. In one clever touch, the retailer stocked Terracycle's backpacks, crafted from Kraft's Capri-Sun packages, next to the actual Capri-Sun beverages.

Plastic bag and container maker S.C. Johnson & Son Inc. has teamed with TerraCycle Inc. to increase recycling of its products. Racine, Wis.-based S.C. Johnson will sponsor the newest TerraCycle Brigade, which allows schools to collect Ziploc bags and containers and then send them back to the company. For each bag or container collected, Ziploc and TerraCycle will pay 2 cents to the school actually doing the collection.

The school signed up for the brigades, an upcycling program started by TerraCycle that is now in more than 50,000 schools nationwide. It's an easy thing to do," said Paul Stone, the school's adjustment counselor who found the program on the Internet. TerraCycle was founded in 2001 by then-19-year-old Princeton University student Tom Szaky, who gave empty drink pouches a second life by turning them into tote bags, backpacks, pencil cases, and lunchboxes.

Other companies' trash is Terracycle's treasure. Back in 2006, we  dubbed Terracycle the "coolest  little start-up in America <http://www.inc.com/magazine/20060701/coolest-startup.html?partner=newsletter_news> ." At the time, Terracycle was focused  almost exclusively on their core product, a garden fertilizer made from  composted worm poop, packaged in re-purposed soda bottles. Today the  company is still turning trash into new products, only on a much larger  scale. As the Wall  Street Journal <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703572504575214431306540058.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_smallbusiness>  reports, Terracycle has greatly expanded their  product line to include everything from backpacks made from reused drink  pouches to kites made from old candy wrappers. That expansion, however,  hasn't come without some difficulties. To house the mounds and mounds  of garbage they collect for their products, the company has had to lease  five new storage warehouses. Terracyle's execs have even begun sharing  offices and moving their desks into the hallways to make room for trash  piles. Terracyle is now banking on increased orders from big-box stores  like Wal-Mart <http://www.inc.com/topic/Wal-Mart+Stores+Inc.>  and Target <http://www.inc.com/topic/Target+Corporation>  to jumpstart their business and keep their  warehouses full of trash out of landfills. "The pressure is as high as I  can think of," says the company's founder, Tom Szaky <http://www.inc.com/topic/Tom+Szaky> .

TerraCycle, another green innovator, is on pace to redefine much of America’s relationship with trash. The company that began with its signature Plant Food-made from worm poop, packaged in empty Pepsi bottles and sold at the likes of Home Depot and Wal-Mart-has evolved into an innovation powerhouse that continually introduces new products made entirely from waste

Terracycle makes cool things by reusing the pouches.

The Wall Street Journal featured three start-up companies with plastics connections over the weekend: e-book company Plastic Logic, recycler TerraCycle Inc., and plastic wine closure maker Nomacorc LLC.

In his book: "Revolution in a Bottle," Tom Szaky shares how he took "unwanted molecules of industry and created a whole new venture." In simple terms, someone's trash became his treasure. In 2002 Szaky dropped out of Princeton to head up TerraCycle a company known for eco-friendly products made from various non-recyclable products from such major retailers as Walmart, Target, and The Home Depot."